Back in 1999 on a radio program I had in NYC at the time, I was stridently critical of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was euphemistically called "The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999" by the very appropriately named Teabagging maestro, Dick Armey.
On the radio program, for months I protested every day that this law was nothing but yet another attempt to inflict Ayn Rand feudalism on hapless Americans.
It should be noted that this execrable and deliberately destructive law was signed by Bill Clinton.
In addition, this evil gutting of the Glass-Steagall Act (not even one of my listeners had ever heard of it) was rapturously endorsed by Lawrence Summers, the Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton, and currently the Chief economic adviser to President Obama, and Timothy Geithner, who was then the Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and the current Treasury Secretary to President Obama.
What does it say about Obama's commitment to financial regulation that his principal economic soothsayers are the very same individuals who aggressively counseled President Cllinton to endorse and sign this idiotic and evil obliteration of the regulatory framework that had protected the American people for over 65 years from the Dodge City economics that has recently brought suffering to billions of innocent people here and abroad !
What I will say now is heresy in the United States, but after all the financial anarchy and pain [ie.,The savings and loan Crisis (1989), The stock market crash of 1987, The Long Term Capital Crisis (1998), Enron, Tyco, Worldcom (2002), and the current mortgage crisis/derivatives crisis)], that the people of the United States have suffered repeatedly in the past twenty years, it is apparent that the problem is not regulation, nor is the "solution", to be found in "reasonable" milquetoast rules crafted by the same wretched people who imposed this fiasco in the first place.
More importantly, from 2001 through 2008, we all experienced the intrinsic vulnerability of even the most carefully crafted regulatory framework, given the ease with which the reactionary Cheney/Bush regime was able to subvert regulation across the board by merely appointing openly dedicated enemies of regulation to the chairmanships of the regulatory bodies.
What's necessary is to begin a serious inquiry as to why an economy of 300,000,000 million citizens should be held prisoner by the private money interest of a small number of people who, on the basis of nothing more than their staggering assets, can control the financial destiny and viability of the other 300,000,000 voting citizens.
There is no reason in reality why such an irrational scheme as the above should continue.
Big Business and Big Finance need to be controlled by all the citizens, for the benefit of all the citizens, not for the benefit of a tiny and elite cadre of private owners on the basis of their own whim, wealth, and private benefit, for the pleasure of themselves alone, and to the continuing misfortune of a nation of 300,000,000 at the mercy of their greater glory.
The citizens need to control the wealth of the nation, and the day to day management of that wealth needs to be directed by people directly accountable to the 300,000,000 citizens rather than to self-interested Boards of Directors accountable only to themselves and their private fortunes.
Jay Diamond pioneered progressive radio in New York City and is currently a media critic and activist.
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